Animal advocate steps down from panel

A commissioner on the Board of Animal Services resigned from the volunteer post Friday, citing concerns about how the mayor's aides and General Manager Ed Boks are running the city's shelters and animal-rescue department.
Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.

Maria Atake, a businesswoman and head of Forte Animal Rescue, was appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2005.

But in a letter to the mayor Friday, Atake complained that Boks makes "false, misleading and inflammatory comments" and that Villaraigosa's deputy chief of staff, Jimmy Blackman, refuses to rein him in.